Servicing the Status Offender

Servicing the Status Offender

By EDWARD PABON

Editor’s note: The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges is officially opposed to rhe removal of stutus offenders from the jurisidction of the juvenile court. This article is presented in the National Council’s publication in the interest of open discussion on this controversial issue in the field of juvenile justice.

T h e major thrust of recent legislation, liti- gation, and administrative changes within the jinrenile justice system relates to the provision of services to youth identified as status offenders. These are youth whose behaviors, such as truancy, incorrigibility, and running aMpay from home, would not be considcred criminal if engaged in by an adult. current ly , controversy rages over what is to be done with such youth. On the one hand, there is wide- spread disatisfaction among many individuals with the manner in which these youths have been processed by the juvenile justice system. O n the other hand, some of the same individuals, as well as m a n y others, see the juvenile justice system as the only available provider of much needed services to these youths. Current trends suggest that sonie changes are being and will continue to be made in the role of the juvenile justice system

Author’s address. Eduard Pabon. Director St Agnes Home

Sparkill, NY 10976 Rt 340

in dealing with status offenders. How much change will occur and what kinds of alternative service delivery sys tem will be devised to handle these youth are open questions.

THE ROLE OF THE

JUVENILE COURT T h e juvenile court is generally vested with

the following types of jurisdiction: (1) proceedings involving juveniles who have allegedly committed statutory offenses, where the case has been withdrawn from the ordi- nary process of criminal justice because of the offender’s age; ( 2 ) proceedings involving behavior which if performed by a n adult would nor be criminal and niould not result in state intervention; and (3) proceedings involving the dependent and/or neglected status of juveniles.

The second type of proceedings is currently a source of great controversy. All fifty-one juvenile statutes in the nation bring within the purview of the juvenile court conduct that is illegal only because of the youth’s age- status offenses. With the exception of truancy and curfew violations, juveniles really coine under the court’s jurisdiction because of their condition, not because of specific conduct. These status offenses are defined in highly subjective terms - “incorrigibility,” “way- wardness,” and “in need of supervision.” In many states, status offenses are defined so broadly that any and all youngsters could be

May, 1978 I Juvenile & Family Court Journal 41

EDWARD PABON

1)rorigl:t \ \ i t l i i n the lu\.cnile court's jurisdiction i t tht . judge \\ere so inclined.

\ation\\ ide, t\venty-five percent of all i i i i eriilc court adjudications are for n o w c r i 111 i ria 1 y o Li t h fu 1 i n is bell a \.ior, and a 1 nios t one-half of all incarcerated minors are PIVS 1 person in need of super\ision), or tlieir sister state cquivalents. A rcview of state and local detention facilities disclosed that forty or fift!. percent of tlie cases in custody, pending dis- positional hearings by judges, consisted of youngsters who had comniitted no crimes. A study of nearly twenty correctional institutions in l-arious parts of the country revealed that between twenty-five and thirty percent of t h e i r res ident p o p u l a t i o n consis ted of youngsters comicted of a juvenile status of- f e n ~ e . ~

T h e designers and founders of the juvenile c o u r t s o u g h t to c rea te a new judicial mechanism that \vould reduce the harsh and u n d i ffe re n ti a tc d t reat i n e i i t of j 11 ve n i 1 e s characteristic of youth-handling in the criminal justice system prior to the twentieth cen- tury. These social reformers \Yere both idealis- tic and optimistic about what could bc achieved through intervention by tlie state into the lives of the young. They neglected to provide a system ofaccountability adequate to ensure self-correcting organizational behavior in case of unanticipated negative consequences. As a result, nearly all who have studied the court concur, at least to soi?ie degree, with one conclusion: namely, there is a large gap between aspiration and reality.

T h e range of issues c o n f r o n t i n g t h e juvenile court today is broad, and few easy answers for resolving these issues are appar- ant. O n e is repeatly confronted with inescap- able ambiguities and contradictions i n the goals, ideology, structure, and operations of juvenile courts. Thus, for example, courts operate under the assumption that they must protect the community, yet the bulk of the cases referred to them are in fact juvenile nuisances. Courts profess to assist troubled youth to receive needed services, and !.et they tend to be quite isolated from the comrriunity network of youth-serving agencies. Courts

de ve l o p coin p 1 ex and c I a bo ra te decision - making structures, presumably to identify the nceds of the youth and to determine the best approaches to meet thern. Yet o\.er onc-half ofall youngsters referred to the courts are sent away \vi th little more than a friendly \i.arning,

which is little more than surveillance. Following the public school, the juvenile

court and the public uelfare agency occupy central positions in the youth-scriice net- Lvork. I t has been assumed that the juvenile court should be the agent of last resort, because it is empowered with the most severe tool of intervention, nainel!,, the re\.ocation of the personal rights of the youth and his parents. T ~ L I S , it must be further assumed that the court should handle youth \vho pose a serious threat to thenisel\-es or the coniriiu- nity. Empirically, however, we find that forty percent or more of the youth referred to courts have commit ted status offenses such as truancy, incorrigibility, running away, curfew violations, and the like.6 These offenses can hardly be conccived as a serious threat to the cornniunity. T h e court thus becoines the agent of first resort for many of these youth. LZ'hile thesc behaviors could pose a serious threat to the youth without appropriate response, it is difficult to comprehend why juvenile courts should be the appropriate re- sponding agency. Courts possess neither the expertise nor the resources to help such youth. It seems reasonable to conclude that forty percent or more of the cases referred to courts should not have been referred there in the first place. This is a rather onerous inis- handling of juvenile nuisances with inestim- able social costs. Consider, for example, the social and psychological costs of detention and institutionalization of status offenders by the courts, when it has been aptly deni- onstrated that s~ieli measures hardly have any a~neliorative effects.

Why do juvenile courts receive such a large proportion of status offenses for handling? The juvenile court's broad, set vague, man- date over inany ju\ienile problems enables it to become the safety valve for youth-service

and most of the rest are put on proh a t ' ion,

42 Juvenile & Family Court Journal May, 1978

agencies and parents. In particular, youth sen ice agencies that n a n t to protect their oii n domain, select the youth they \\is11 to service, reduce failures, and rid theinselves of uii- cooperati1.e youth find the court a con\.enient agent to handle their unwanteds. Once these referrals arc made to the court, youth seri.ice agencies and parents can wash their hands of rcsponsibility to the youth in\,olved. By its sxmbolic act of processing such a referral, the court in essence proves a legal certification that the referring parents and youth service agencies are not liable for the bcliarior of the youth and arc absolved from responsibility if they fail to contain it.

;I major latent coiiscquence of this role of the court is to rcducc the pressure on youth service agencies, such as schools, child and family sen ice programs, employnient services, and mental health programs, to re- spond more effectively :o adolescence-related p r o b l e m s . T h u s , for e x a m p l e , .rvhen youngsters fail in school and are officially defined as delinquent because of behavior frequently resultant from such failure, the schools are relie\,ed from having to deal with the very causes of the failure.

Studies indicate that one-half or niorc of the juveniles referred to the courts receive no specific ser\:ices at all.’ They are simply dis- missed, or counselled, warned, and released or referred to other agencies. I n a sense, this pattern illustrates the inherent ambivalence in the response of juvenile courts to demands for action by the community. Court staff rec- ognize that parents and other youth service agencies attempt to use the court as a “dump- ing ground” for their problem youth, and that for Iiiost cases a legal action is inappropriate and ineffective. Hence, while the courts cannot stop the inflow of referrals, they certainly can attempt to exit them with minimal or no court intervention. By this revolving door policy, the referring agencies can show that they at least tried to cope with the problem youth, and the court can display its benevolent-in the best interest of the child-posture. T h e only victims of this policy, unfortunately, are the youth themselves, because they are not

likcl! to rccei1.e needed sen ices from either the referriiig agencie\ or the court.

“Running away from home, using alcohol and drugs, and having numerous problems with school are problems not limited to a special category of youth officially detected and processed as status offenders. The author suspects that youth in correctional programs for status offenses are not intrin- sically different from most adolescent youth in the behaviors which resulted in their commitment. Rather the differences lie in the handling of these youth by the juvenile justice system. . . .”

SERVICING T H E STATUS OFFENDER


Juvenile courts are hampered in attaining high levels of effectivcness because of thc vol- u m e of juvenile nuisanccs that they process, a 11 d h ec a use they s pe n t d i s p ro po r t i o iia t e amounts of time o n these cases. These behaviors are overdramatized, as the case of runaways illustrates. Runaways are charac- terizcd as serious offenders in many courts, when, in fact, two-thirds are over the age of . fifteen, remain away from home 110 more than tcvo days, and spend that time with a relative or friend less than ten niiles from their homes. Certainly, some runaways have serious personal and social problems, but coercive action by the court is not a reasonable solution for most. A recent report experience in a legal assistance office for juveniles high- lighted many of the problenis of the justice system, not from the vantage point of the court as \ve have observed them, but from the perspective of youth and their families as they are cycled and recycled through the justice s y ~ t e r n . ~ T h e author concluded that the court could only fail when it attempted to become a rehabilitative agency, because the goals it could serve most effectively were to resolve disputes among claimants that could not be resolved outside the court.

Because the consequences are dispropor- tioned to the offenses and are largely based on ascribed characteristc and chance elements,

EDWARD PABON

juritdictiori o\ er status offenses should be re- mo\ cd froni the ju\.enile justice system and assigned to the child welfare or yonth service agencies in the various states. Very littlc real change would occur if social control agents, such as police and the courts, simply re- labeled status offense behavior in terms which enabled the juvenile court to retain jurisdiction o\'er many of the youth. For cxaniple, with a slight stretch of the imagination, one can charge many runaways or truants with some local ordinance violation, resulting in a misdemeanor charge. Similarly, many status offenders conceivably could be declared ne- glect cases, and thus be retained under iuvenile court jurisdiction. It is clear from available research studies that non-offenders experiencc the full range of juvenile correctional processing.'' Thus, a rclabeling of status offenders as neglected youth would produce little real change. More changes would be effccted if the services to status offenders presently provided by the juvenile justice system became the responsibility of the public and private social service sector. The critical role for the juvenile court is to ensure that these agencies provide the services needed by these you th at risk. I n the past decade as the community and its voluntary agencies have increasingly failed to cope with or solve the problems of youth, the courts have been pressed into processing a wide array and greater volume of these problems. The community refuses to acknowledge that inor- ality cannot be enforced by negative sanc- tions, or to face the serious implications ofthe increasingly disproportionate numbers of poor and minority group persons who are absorbed into this system. Moreover, in the case of status offenses, youth are processed rather than their adult parents, when the lat- ter are often a t least as culpable as the juveniles.

SOME ISSUES IN

ALTERNATIVE SERVICES Proposals in support of nonjudicial han-

dling abound, but they generally give greater attention to the shortcomings of present activ-

ity than to the dctails of recominended sub- stitutions. And experience is too limited to permit definitive evaluation of the achieve- merits under such nonjudicial programs as ha1.e been organized. Nevertheless, bve are not wholly lacking relevant evidence.

First, one ma): observe with dismay that little attention has been given to who would undertake nonjudicial handling of the status offender population. Given the desire of j uveni le j iistice reformers to improve upon the helpfulncss of public response to juvenile ni i s behavi o r , an i rnpo rta n t question is whether we have sought an!- guarantees that the nonjudicial agency of choice shares the same objectives as those the reformers are promoting. The author fears a candid answer must be no, and suggests that we must pay attention to the symbiotic relationship between the juvenile justice system and the service agencies. The espousal of new goals for juvenile justice ought to bc a niomcntous event among child-oriented service agencies, as well as in the obvious agencies of law en- forccment and justice. Rut on neither side of the fence does there appear to be full apprecia- tion of the interconnections between the j u ~ e n i l e justice and service sectors. For example, the record of the youth service bureau movement is unimpressive as vet, and there are grounds for concern ahout their programs. They may be serving a less deviant population at the expense of the minor offenders whose diversion was intended by the supporters of nonjudicial handling proposals. And the group that is served may become labeled stigmatically as a result ofthe service. The research findings, although impression- istic, do indicate greater numbers and types of juveniles contacted by agents of social control after the implementation of diversion programs." There is reason to fear that the bureaus are perpetuating some of the draw- backs of judicial response to juvenile mis- behavior and may perpetuate the shortcomings of a welfare model of social services as well.

Second, neither the service sectors nor the courts act as if low-level deviancy among

44 Juvenile & Family Court Journal I May, 1978

SERVICING THE STATUS OFFENDER

youngsters is normal. O r , ifthey do, this point of view docs not appear as an acknowledged major influence upon their operations. Yet, self report studies of delinquent!, and other relevant evidence inform u s that various kinds of juvenile misbcha\ior are best understood as the endemic and transient phenomena of youth. Reflection on this point leads to the irony that the status offender may not present severe enough problems for the service sector. Just because participation in relatively mild, transient misconduct marks them, by some experts’ thinking, as candidates for uonjudi- cia1 handling does not establish them as the business of another field of specialization. Even ifthat other sector concedes the suitahil- ity of status offenders for service therein, they seem destined to he placed low on the pritrity list. The problems most readily identified as belonging to the helping services are those that are more pathological.

Third, there is disagreement among individuals and organizations deeply committed to the welfare of youngsters concerning whether o r not services should be completely voluntary. This issue cannot be solved in this paper. The purpose of mentioning this issue here is to emphasize that a voluntary or a coercive strategy involves risk; and to advocate that, whatever strategy is selected, planners must seek to minimize both risks.

Fourth, decision makers must look beyond the labels of “boarding school,” “residential treatment center,” “day treatment center” and the’like to determine the type of care actually given in these facilities. A recently completed national study of status offenders suggest that, although great pains are often taken by these institutions to avoid the stig- matizing label of training school or in- stitution, by calling themselves schools or residential treatment centers, they are, in fact, correctional institutions. l 3 A relatively high proportion ofthe status offenders felt that they were in fact treated as if they had committed criminal acts, by being subject to fairly rigid control and surveillance and isolation from family and friends. Moreover, status offenders expected to stay an average of a t lead

four months longer in private institutions than public ones. The author suggests, therefore, that careful consideration be given to devising alternatives other than private institutions for status offenders.

In addition, despite the freedom and au- tonomy available to status offenders in day programs and group homes, these youth ex- pressed considerable concern about the im- pact of these programs upon their lives. One- third of the youth in the study felt that the program had the effect of labeling them as criminals. l 4 Moreover, the programs suffered from the lack of effective treatment services for status offenders. Despite the fact that some programs, especially day treatment, were situated close to the families of these youth, thcre was little evidence of any attempt to involve these families in the treatment prog- ress.

Finally, a clear understanding of what is meant by cornmunitv-based will need to be developed. Is a program community-based if it is located in some neighborhood and makes use of community resources such as schools, or o n l y if it is designed, implemented, and evaluated with maximuni feasible community participation. ‘ 5 Though both group homes and day programs are labeled as cornmuIiity-based, there is some reason to believe that many of them are really quite isolated from their communities and neighborhoods. Because of the difficulties involved in developing these programs in well- established, stable neighborhoods, many of them are found in transient, anomic areas where little or no contact exists between the residents and the program. Youth in them often are told not to associate with neighborhood youth. In other areas, neighborhood youth are told not to associate with program youth, and the program in general is feared and shunned by the community.

SERVICES TO

STATUS OFFENDERS In developing non-correctional services for

youth presently labeled as status offenders, we must be able to clearly define them and pro-

May, 1978 1 Juvenile & Family Court Journal 45

EDWARD PABON

\-idc needcd services to them as a specialized target population. Status offenders enter the correctional system during niidadolescence, a \ craging around fifteen years of age. Prior to this sustairicd contact tvith a correctional program, they have had considerable experience ivith various agents of social control, including police, juvenile courts, detention, and jail facilities. Many of them have been involved in repeated episodes of noncriminal hut pro bl e in heha 1.i or, i n cl ud i ng ru i i 11 i ng aa-a!- from home, skipping school, and sus- pension f r o m school before their conimit- nient as status offenders.

I’hough they have had a great deal of coii- tact nit11 correctional agencies before their commitment , the author tends to doubt that no n c o r re c t i o n a 1 s e r vi c e s lve r e extensive 1 y used to assist them to deal with their problems. It is quite clcar that noncorrectional alternatives for youth a i t h multiple problems, involving families and schools, are e i t h e r no t \\ idel!, used , n o t n u m e r o u s e 11 o ugh, too select i ve , o r no t attractive enough to handle these youth.

Clearly, there is a need for affordable family counselling for youth cvith family problems and difficulties living at home, and it should be protided at times and places con- venient and accessible to the participants. Crisis inter\.ention clinics for youth shoiild be readily available so that there is a place to turn immediately lvhen things get out of hand.

The economic pressures facing most youth now labeled as status offenders and the need for many of them to be able to provide for themselves within a few years make it impera- tive that programs designed for such youth incorporate educational and employinent opportunities relevant to their needs.

Problems in coping with the demands of community schools are evident in the relatively high rates ofschool truancy and suspen- sion of status offenders. In designing pro- g r a m to meet the educational needs of status offenders as a specialized group, all efforts should be made to continue to keep these youth in community schools whenever possi- ble, while a t the same time recognizing that

they may have special problerns and ma!. re- quire services uhi le in school such as tutoring and counselling. If a1ternati1.c schools are seen as a \vorth\vhile alternative, they need to be improved and expanded so that they serve as a real option f o r youth unable to make it in a t radi t ional school en \ i r o n m e n t . Yet, pe r h a ps in o re i ni po rta 11 t then a 1 tern at ir.e prograins in scparatc locations, it would bc better to provide alternatives that are academ- ically and vocationally strong n.ithin regular schools to reduce the segregation, isolation, a n d stigmatization that many such programs now suffer.

‘I’he issues just raised are not easily rc- solved. In large part they are questions of ideology and \.aliie, left in Iim1,o becausc n e as a nation d o not ha\ co nipre he nsi ve ;i nd consistent polic! regarding our youth. Yet the dilemmas posed can be iiiforined b y system- inatic efforts a t collecting and understanding inforniation about the coiiseqiiences of different kinds of interventional strategies.

YOUTH SOCIALIZATION A N D UNIVERSALISTIC

SERVICES

The “in” concepts in social welfare and ju\.enile justice programming are decriminal- ization, diversion, and deinstitutionalization . At all levels of society there are increasing efforts to decriminalize a \micty ofbehaviors, including the use of drugs, ganibliiig, and status offenders. I n addition there are efforts to divert large numbers of persons from full justice processing to voluntary community agencies. Deinstitutionalization has been linked to diversion policy but goes beyond it into the area of comrnunity-based placement of many categories of persons formerly placed in institutions.

This society faces serious problems for its youth, including declining educational per- formance, increasing delinquency, family dissolution and inadequate parenting, increasing mental illness, high levels of sub- stance abuse, and serious unemployment for at least one-third of young adults. These problems are further compounded by the fact that

46 Juvenile & Family Court Journal 1 May, 1978

SERVICING T H E STATUS O F F E N D E R

between 1 1 o ~ and thc mid- 1980s t h e nil1 be a disproportionately large percentage of the population in the age group from t\vel\.e to twenty-fi1.e. I t is expected that thc !.out11 bulge in the age structurc \\.ill begiii to dissipate b!. 1990; thcrcfore, it is important that long- range polic)- decisions be made ~ i t h this dc- mographic pattern in niiiid. Othcrn.isc, n~ may have to undo in the 1990s inappropriate social structures created in the 1970s.

Although formal s!-stems of social control u d l probably always be found in a l l socicties, it is not essential that these systems become so elaborate and extei1sit.e as is the casc \\..it11 the juvenile justice system in the United States. Accurate data are not available for a coiiipari- son, but i t appears that inany states are prcs- ently spending far more money for social control of certain categories of adolescent youth than they are spending for positi1.e socialization through appropriate education, health, and child aelfare services. Past decisions resulted in an expansion of the juvenile control system; present iuvenile crime rates suggests rather clearly that the desired results were not achieved. Therefore , this is the t ime to examine other alternatives.

Though it may be relatively easy to esti- mate the number of status offcnders currently in correctional programs, it would bc ex- trernely difficult to discover what proportion of adolescent youth in general experience problems and engage in acts labeled as status offenses without coming to official attention. Recent surveys of youth in the United States indicate, however, that substantial propor- tions of youth are ini.olved in the use of alcohol and drugs.16 Data from incidence studies on runaways indicate that approxi- mately one of every ten non-institutionalized youth, twelve and seventeen years of age, has r u n away from home a t least once (and this prevalence rate is probably a conservative es- timate.)” .4ccording to data froin the Office of Civil Rights one in every thirteen secon- dary students enrolled was suspended at least once during the 1972-1973 school year and nearly two million youngsters were not enrolled in school.

Running au’ay from home, using alcohol and drugs, and hal ing niinierous problems \vith school are problems not limited to a special category of youth officially detected and processed as status offenses are not intrin- sicall!. different from most adolescent youth in the behaviors u h i c h resulted in their conirnitment. Rather the differences lie in the handling of these youth by the juvenile justice system; rather than by communi ty , neighborhood, parents, rclatives, or friends. Therefore, the Mriter advocates the provision of c o m m u n i t y - l e d ser\.ices i n the areas of drug and alcohol education and treatnient, crisis intcr\.cntion, family counselling, sex education, and legal and inedical serlices for youth. These senices should be available to all youth, without recourse to parental per- mission or support. Though the!, should provide special attention to problems of youth in crisis and give priority attention to adolescents who are particularly troublcd, they would not be geared to a special category.

T h e provisions of non-correctional cat- egorical service alternatives allows most social systems currently dealing with youth to continue to utilize their present modes of func- tioning. Transferring responsibility for status offenders froin the juvenile justice system to the social service sector places no pressure on schools to rnodify their allegedly destructive practices. By way of contrast, a universalistic service strategy would not isolate status offenders as a group. Rather, all youth would be seen as a population at risk, that is, in danger of experiencing problematic circumstances. T h e thrust of service would be preventive, rather than reactive. Accordingly, the focus would be on providing community-level support services for youth and their families as well as innovations in the schools. Specific programs would need to be developed accord- ing to the needs of a particular community, but the general goal would be the prevention of youthful alienation.

Clearly, there is a pressing need for a national policy emphasizing the provision of services and programs for all youth needing and wanting them. The participation of youth


EDWARD PABON

therii\el\-es in such program planning and po I I c! i i i aki ng cannot be overemphasi zed. .I he uni\ersalistic approach to services for ! out t i has t h e par t icu lar a d u n t a g e of m i n i mi zi 11 g t h e sti gnia t i z i ng effect that treatment programs have had and continue to h a w for many recipients. If the probleins of youth socialization and social control are to be resohrd, mechanisms must be created whereby individuals can join together to focus their attention on the difficulties of groaing u p in a postindustrial society, rather than concentrating on narrowly defined social problems where one’s stance is more reactive than proactive. M u c h of our experience in solving social probleins suggests t h a t epidemiological and preventive programs can produce successful outcomes, when the proper levels of intervention are addressed. From our observation of the contemporary juvenile court in the United States, coiii- prehensive societal action toward enhancing the conditions for growing up in this country are long overdue.

FOOTNOTES lJiidy Calof, “Status Offenders and the Juvenile Court ,”

a uorking paper Alban), Neu York: U.Y.S. Diviuon for Youth, 1975

2 L l a r k Levin, and Rotemary Sarri, Juvenile Delin- quency: A Compcirative Analysis ofLegal Codes in fhe United States, (:Inn Arbor: University of \ l icl i ipii , National .2ssessment of Ju\ciiilc Corrcctions, 19741.

3Paul Lerman, “Child Convicts.” Transaction, July- r\ugust. 1974, p. 35

41bid., p. 3- ‘hlargaret, Kosenhciiii. “Votes on Hclplng, Yor i i~ :~ l~z -

ing ji i \ rnilr Uuitaricec,” Social Service ReiYcJiv, Julie 1976. pp. 1::-193.

6Rosemdr!, Sarri, Under Lock und Key: Juvenile.t in Jail and Detetirioti. (.%in1 Xrhor: Uiii\cr\it> of hlichigan. Vational .%r~ersment of J~neriile Corrcctions, 1974).

’Jainr\ Short ,ind F. h a n N>e , “Estent of IJnrecordcd Jiiveiiile Deliiiqucnc): Tcntati\.c Concliis~ons,” The Journul o j Criminul Law trrzd Criminology, \lo]. 40,

Hiiizenga, and 1). Ell iot t . The Incidence and Nature of R~tnci~vuy Be- havior I Rouldcr, Colorado: Beliai ioral Research a ~ ~ d E\aluation Corp., 1975).

‘Patrick Ylurphv, Our Kindlji Purent . . . The Stute: The Juvenile Justice System arid How I t Works, (Yea York: Viking Presi. 1974).

ioV+’illiani Barton, Paul lwistadt, a i d El‘iiire Srlo, Analysis of Data on Stutus Offenders in Correctionul Programs, i\Vatliington: U . S . Dcpartment of Ilealth. Edi~c~ation, and \Vclf<ire, 1976).

“b:d\rard Pabon, “Hcre \Vc Go Again - The Cliild Savers,” Juvenile Justice. Februar?, 1 9 7 , p . 44

I 2Jay Li’illianis, and \lartin Gold, “From Deliiiqueric\ Beha\ ior to Official Uelinque~r

1958, 296.302. 8’ l ’ i i i i Breiimii, F. Blanchard, 11

Fall. 1972. 1 ’ ~ . 209-299. 130p.ci/., p. I99 I4Barton, Analysis of Dutu on Stutus Ojj2nder.y in Cor-

rectionul Programs, p. 209. lSRol)ert Coates, “.A \L’orking Paper on C u ~ n ~ r ~ u r i ~ t r -

Bawd Corrections: Concepts, 1 lictorical Deyelop- meiit, Iinpact, arid Potential l1angcrs.” tlarvard La\\ School: Center for Criminal Justice, undated.

16h la r t~n Gold, and David Reiiner, “Changing Patterns of Delinquent Behavior Aiiiong .Ainericanc 13- I6 years old: 1967.72,’’ Crime and Delic~quenry Lireru- ture, December, 1975, pp. 483-51:.

I’1J.S Department of Health, Education. and \i’rlfare, Runaway Youth: A Status Report und Summary of Projects us of March 31, 1976, \\’ashirigton: 1976.

ipChildreri’c Defense Fund, Children Our of School in America. Cmibridgr, Mass. 1974.

ORGANIZED MAY 22. 1937

48 Juvenile & Family Court Journal 1 May, 1978

Documents

Servicing the Status Offender